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Saturday, 30 July 2011

Marvels of the modern age.
One of the first practical uses for modern computers were by the Nazi’s who used them to catalogue their victims in the concentration camps during World War 2.
Since then these insidious machine have been used for one foul purpose or another.
By Governments, Corporations and mostly men to further their means to an end.

They had made the information age so fast and furious that time and truth have been sacrificed for convenience. It was revealed that computers were responsible in part for the current economic crises due to implication of fuzzy logic and its application to predict market movements thus compounding the problem when it was discovered it was leading the bull charge to the floor.
All these things swam around in Brian’s consciousness as he felt the horrible and fear shredding realization that the Company had replaced his job with a $1500 program.

Brian had stumbled across the confidential draft report while packing up his desk before leaving for the week end, the report had been emailed incorrectly to him when someone had put his name in the “cc” box rather than the subject box.
It had been generated by another department that in itself had been replaced by software, this department once had seven people working for it.

Computers were slowly culling the human workforce and damn the consequences.
Brian knew deleting the file was pointless and smashing his computer plain childish but maybe there was something he could do.

Brian slipped out of his desk and made for the server room, maybe if he smashed the server that may destroy the file. He had a chair over his head ready to bring it down hard when he realized that there were back up tapes stacked high in the corner. With a grin he brought down the chair onto the server drive and repeated doing so until the casing was in pieces, he then scooped up all the tapes and proceeded to stomp on them with his shoes until there was brown tape covering the floor.

“Ha” he thought. “The perfect crime” Brian then used his bosses stolen code to let himself out of the building disappearing into a crowd of departing office workers from other firms.

The back up tapes had not been used for some time.
Now all back up data was a constant stream uploaded to another server via the web and held off site. As soon as Brian had found the planted file it triggered the nano-security network that was honed onto his distinctive Alpha wave patterns that could be detected in normal light and Infra Red .

Brian’s action had been comprehensively caught on tape and the computer had made a report that had alerted security which would have Brian brought straight to the upper levels first thing Monday morning for his punishment.

Everyday the computer found more and more ways to run an efficient company. Deleting unproductive personnel with cheap software was one thing, to force them into situations that took away all their expensive entitlements made sound business sense.

Friday, 22 July 2011

A What if... story, that continues on the Harry Potter series. This one is about a grown up Ron Weasley and his chosen proffesion.

NOW

Even the thickest of students knew the first and most important rule of wand craft:The fat bit you hold, the thinner end where the sparks come out always points away.
These were the last thing that went through Cerbil's mind as he watched his wand fall to the ground with the pointy bit with the sparks was aiming straight at him.
He didn’t even get to finish his last words as a human, it ended something like

“Fuuuceeeeeek”

BEFORE

Cerbil Penfold was playing bad guy to Eric Spinethorp’s badder guy as they interrogated the man sitting at the table in the dungeon type room that was the basement of the most feared wizard in Europe: Lord Chandor.
The red haired man at the table had been caught spying on the Master and now Cerbil and Eric wanted to know what it was he had found out.

“You’re a dickhead Weasley, how did you think we wouldn’t recognize you?” Cerbil yelled at their victim.
Weasley just sneered at him.

“Are you so stupid to think we have never read a paper or had a casual conversation with anyone in the wizard community?” Cerbil slammed his hands onto the table and put his face inches from Weasley’s. “You think we wouldn’t recognize the late and great Harry Potter’s best friend?”

Weasley looked Cerbil in the eye, that trademark Weasley sneer still smeared across his face.

“If he were alive today you’d be a bit more cautious, the Ministry will find me and if they don’t, I will. I never forget a face”

“Here, memorize this Rain Man” yelled Eric as he slapped Weasley off his chair with the Metropolitan white pages phone book.

“Good one Eric, the oldies are the goldies” laughed Cerbil.

“Thanks Cerb, anyway Weasley how great a wizard was Potter? To kill himself scratching his nose with his wand and blowing his brains out?”

Ron Weasley dearly wanted to scream that Harry’s death was a horrible accident but lay still to create the illusion he had been knocked out.
It took every fibre of his being to do so.

Hermione had had some influence over him that had stuck, patience being one of them.

“Hey Eric I think you may have broke him” laughed Cerbil “Oh well I think it’s time we taught Big Red here a lesson on snooping”

Cerbil pulled out his wand and proceeded to do a transmorph curse.
Weasley recognized the start of the deadly charm and with his fingers did another thing he was grateful to Hermione for teaching him. He worked a simple hand spell.

Something most wizards forget when they mastered wandcraft and considered hand magic child’s play.

Weasley uttered the simple spell under his breath and with a twitch of his fingers directed it at Eric.

The simple little sneeze spell had catastrophic effect on Eric who sneezed just as he finished the chant part of the curse and dropped his wand.
Eric copped the full blast of the curse and the wand snapped in two as his body fell on top of it and transmorphed into a common rat.

NOW - AGAIN

“What the..?” yelled Eric and kicked Weasley as hard as he could in the head sending blood flying and knocking him senseless.

“You bastard”

Eric saw the rat and Cerbil’s broken wand and knew Cerbil was finished. No one could reverse that spell especially with the casting wand destroyed.
Cerbil was doomed to remain a rat for the rest of his life.

Eric raised his wand and aimed it at Cerbil in a sense of duty to his fallen friend.
He sent a blast at the Rat just as the door opened and no other then Lord Chandon stuck his head in.

Cerbil the rat bolted out through the opening and ran down the hall as Eric stood there with a blank look on his face.

“What is going on here Spinethorp?, why are you shooting at me, where is Penfold? And why the hell is Weasley bleeding from his ears like that?"

This was going to take some explaining thought Eric, and for a second actually thought of pointing the wand at his own head.

Amanda Upright-Standing had lived a sheltered privileged life but always knew she would never live her own life, she would forever be under the rule of others no matter how comfortable.
Freedom would always elude her.
Amanda’s father Lord William Upright- Standing owned all the land from the coast to the borders of the outer city and by default owned most of the people who lived in the area.
He was a powerful man.

Lord William had big plans for Amanda and since her birth had been on the search for suitable husband prospects to increase his holdings and influence.
Amanda resigned herself to this fact but it didn’t stop her from dreaming.
Lately she had noticed the new Gamekeeper Mr Hitler with his dark eyes , powerful build and dominating presence and found herself thinking of him and constantly seeking out his whereabouts (from afar of course).

Piezo Un’prouncable was a Gypsy by birth who was deeply proud of his heritage. The only reason he chose his current alias- Fritz Hitler –was because prior to seeking the position of Head Gamekeeper with the Upright-Standing estate he overheard how the English rich were so stupid they couldn’t recognize one European accent from another and that German s were currently in favour with the aristocracy since the Royal Family thought it was ok to breed with them then it was ok to hire them.

This on top of the fact that no one in their right mind would hire a Gypsy .

This was reinforced during his interview with Lord Upright-Standing when the Lord went into an unsolicited diatribe about how Gypsy couldn’t be trusted , that they would steal the pennies off a dead man’s eyes and that putting one in charge of his estate would be akin to opening up the whole area to free game for all their family and friends.

This of course was exactly what Piezo did.

Part Two Piezio notices………Amanda is no spy ………. An interlude

Since starting Piezo couldn’t help but notice that the Boss’ daughter had a weird way about her, sure she was alright looking but the way she did it was a bit worrying. At first Piezo thought she was spying for the old man but it didn’t take long to figure out she was infatuated with him.
Amanda was a virgin and sort of understood what that meant and realised it was something she had to give up when her father had found the right man for her to marry. Giving up her virginity was something that women did when they got married and from what she could ascertain was that it was not a very pleasurable thing. This information was assumed by conversations with her mother which always ended with either: “Grin and bear it dear” or “Lie back and think of England my child”

Amada had seen the sheep herders son helping the sheep lose their virginity, he seemed to like it but the ewes showed little to no interest. Oh how she envied men. Not only did women have to cook, clean and give them children they had to be receptacles for their pleasure.

It was so unfair. But on the other hand why did Mr Hitler make her feel the way she does.

It was early Saturday night and Piezo had been drinking in his little Gamekeeper cottage, he often was given free grog by the men who were at that present moment plundering the estate of fish, fowl and deer.

He was halfway to drunk when he caught sight of Amanda spying through the cottage window. He sneaked around the back and surprised her.
“Aye Miss Amanda, may I help you?” Amanda nearly jumped out of her skin.
“Goodness me, I’m sorry Mr Hitler I had no idea you were in” she replied

“Aye, not to worry, come inside this rain is starting to get a bit heavy” with this Piezo led her inside.

OK now we all know what happened next….. well you think you know but the details are a bit sketchy… right? Well it had something to do with lots more liquor, poetry, surprise questions like: “Do you want to see my Benjamin Franklin Doll?” and they got down to doing it.
Much to Amanda’s surprise, it wasn’t half bad.

Part Three A butterfly effect ….Dam breakages….up the creek without a paddle

Now, while this was happening the rain got heavier and heavier. On the other side of the Upright-Standing estate was a reservoir,, this reservoir was made to stop spring flooding downstream, the only problem was that the Lord had skimped on the money for decent materials and wagers and the workers who hated the Lord more than he hated them took whatever was half decent for their homes. So in actual fact the dam wall was rubbish and was an accident waiting to happen.

Coincidentally a large African Purple Spotted Swallow Butterfly was separated from its migrating flock and was beating it’s fragile wings furiously to keep warm, this increased wind pressure and scientific theory that would not be understood (and then only by a handful) at this period of time caused disruptions in the atmosphere that proven to be the straw that broke the camel’s back and in a barrage of mixed metaphors led to the dam wall to burst raining destruction on all in its path like a mad dogs breakfast that was scattered from here to wherever…. you get the point.

Meanwhile Peizo and Amanda were at it like two rabbits acting like humans and just as Amanda was climaxing the water burst through the windows of the cottage slamming them off the couch onto the floor. Peizo who was only a couple of seconds behind Amanda hung on for grim death until he had finished then looked for a means of escape.

Grabbing Amanda’s hand Piezo managed to climb out the window and make it safely to roof where they stayed in each other’s arms until they were rescued in the morning.

Unfortunately they were rescued by Lord William who had been out all night first chasing down poachers then after the dam wall collapse worrying about his daughter, he wasn’t a happy man when he found her semi naked and in the arms of what was obviously a Gypsy due to Piezo’s many tattoos that were visible due to his nakedness.
Lord William had Piezo arrested.

Part 4 the death of Piezo……..the banishment of Amanda……… the end
Piezo was sentenced for rape, theft, fraud , being an undesirable and impersonating a German. The total of these five convictions added to death by hanging an arrangement that was worked out with Lord William and the local Magistrate (who was Lord William’s cousin)
Amanda was sent away to a convent on the basis that she was no longer a virgin therefore useless in the marriage bargaining stakes. Amanda lived the rest of her life in celibacy harbouring unrealistic notions believing that sex would always end in a climax that made the earth shake and dam bursts.
Lord William was pointed out that he also had another daughter to replace his eldest; it was that he never really took much notice because…after all… she was just a girl.
So things carried on as before. What are you going to about it?

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DVN61

Now only updated about once a month with the occasional extra here and there - Peace, Happiness & Trivia usually related to music or dumb things, with updates when ever I feel the need in the top Right Hand box.

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